Chapter Ten
Though Kili was very eager to be up and on their way, Fili insisted they wait a couple more days so that he could fully recover, loathe as the prince was to stay with the wood-elves a second longer. Their other companions were removed from the dungeons and placed into rooms of their own. No matter how lavish the rooms, though, the dwarrows were not inclined to be gracious guests.
Though Fili had been afforded his own room, he spent the nights, and most of the days, in Kili's bed, holding him close. Not that anything more than a few languid kissed had happened, much to Kili's displeasure. The prince had obviously taken the wizard's, and later Dori's, admonishments about dishonor to heart.
"We can't," Fili protested when Kili tried to take things further, straddling Fili's lap and pulling them as close as possible.
"Why not? Why should we let some stupid, arbitrary rules dictate our relationship?" He leaned in to whisper wickedly in Fili's ear. "If I want you buried deep within me, claiming me as your own, why should anyone stand in our way?"
Fili groaned and clutched desperately at Kili's hips. "You're going to kill me, but we really can't. You could get pregnant."
"Not likely," Kili scoffed, grinding down into Fili's lap with a moan. "I'll only be fertile once, maybe twice a year. Chances are low."
"But still there," the prince pointed out, gently pushing Kili off of him and back onto the bed. "And even if I were inclined to break all of our traditions and take you as my own, I would not risk you being in such a delicate condition on such a dangerous journey."
"There are other things we could do," he suggested, pulling Fili down to him by his mustaches braids and giving him a lingering kiss.
Fili chuckled against his lips. "You are much more confident in my ability to stop after just a taste than I am." He pulled away from Kili with obvious reluctance.
Kili pouted but let him go, deciding not to push any further. "Well, since you aren't going to touch me inappropriately," he said, causing Fili to roll his eyes and shake his head. "Will you braid my hair?"
Fili gave him a soft smile. "I thought you'd never ask."
Kili allowed the prince to help him to sit up despite not needing the aid. Fili leaned off the side of the bed, twisting to reach his pack and pull a pouch and a comb from it. Kili tried to get a peek at the pouch, but Fili slid more comfortably behind him and gently turned his head to face forward.
"You can see when I'm done," Fili teased, tugging his hair playfully.
Before Kili could protest the harsh treatment, Fili was combing through his hair, teasing any snares and knots out gently. Kili sighed at his ministrations, not having had anyone show such care to his hair in a long time.
"You're purring like a feline," Fili commented. Kili couldn't see his face, but he knew the prince was smirking. "If you enjoy your hair being petted so much, why have you always let it fly free? Your mother gave up braiding it by the time you were twenty because you'd always let out the braids at the first chance you got."
"I never let myself enjoy it before," he admitted with a rueful twist of his lips. "Mama always ordered me to sit still and let her braid. So of course, in childish rebellion, I ripped the braids out whenever I could. Then she's order me to sit still again and it turned into an endless cycle."
To be fair to his mother, Kili had never been a dwarfling that liked to sit still for any period of time. Add to that the vexation he felt in being made to sit still, and he became a right little hellion unless ordered.
"Didn't she know how you resented the curse?" Fili asked, separating clump of hair on the top left side of his forehead and beginning to braid it.
"I never told her how much it hurts to try and resist it," he replied, relaxing against his betrothed as Fili's nimble fingers wove what was obviously a bead into the top of the braid he was working on before quickly finishing it off and securing it. "I tried not to let her see any bad effects of the curse because she'd blame herself for letting it happen."
Fili's fingers paused slightly before beginning a braid identical to the first on the top right side of his head. "It pains you?"
He said nothing as Fili finished the second braid before gathering the top portion of his hair and pulling it back and securing it with a clasp, twin beaded braids displayed prominently on top of his head. Fili turned him so that they were facing and pressed their foreheads together.
"Âzyungâl, please, let me know the burdens it puts on you," Fili pleaded, unfairly in Kili's mind, because how could he possibly resist those sapphire eyes?
"It starts as nausea," he confessed, looking down and twisting his hands in the blankets. "Then I get dizzy. The room spins and it feels as if I might pass out but it never lets me. Then the pain starts."
"Kili…"
"It feels like a hundred blacksmiths are hammering away in my head as I'm being stabbed by thousands of burning blades," Kili went on, blinking back tears. "I'm never strong enough to get past that. I usually don't even make it past the nausea before my body gives in," he admitted bitterly.
"I'm glad," Fili whispered fervently, pulling him in and tucking his head under his chin. "I don't want you in pain, ever."
"What if whatever's past the pain is what breaks the curse?" Kili asked.
"The wizard said he'd seen your curse before and it had never been broken," the prince stated. "You shouldn't foolishly put yourself in harm's way for something that may be impossible. Now sit up please, your braids are not done."
Kili knew for a fact that the two braids already in his hair were all there was to betrothal braids, but he sat up anyway, rolling his eyes as Fili carefully sectioned off some hair near his left ear and began a thin braid. Leave it to Fili to want everyone who came upon them to recognize Kili as part of Erebor's nobility. He frowned, though, as Fili slipped a bead on the end and tied it off before beginning an identical braid on his right side.
"Two braids is only for royalty," he pointed out, grabbing the completed braid and inspecting the bead on the end. "And I know I am not to wear beads with the insignia of Durin until I am officially a member of the House of Durin."
"You are royalty. And you are of the House of Durin because you are my One," Fili replied patiently, completing the final braid and leaning back with a satisfied smile to survey his work. "You are a prince of Erebor. Never forget that."
Kili toyed with the braid he still grasped before looking at Fili with a shy smile. "You already had the beads made?"
"Made them myself as soon as I came of age. I knew exactly who they were going to, as well," the prince said seriously, bringing a hand up to cup Kili's cheek. "There was never any doubt."
"I don't have any for you," he replied regretfully. "But come here. I'm going to put my braids in your hair to let everyone know you are taken."
Fili smiled before letting Kili arrange him how he wanted, and soon, Fili had identical twin betrothal braids on the top of his head.
"There," Kili said in satisfaction. "Now you're mine."
"I've always been yours," Fili assured him before giving him a tender kiss. "Now, I believe it is time for bed. We have an early start tomorrow."
#
It was supremely unfair, Kili decided, that Gandalf could help Bifur and not him or Ori. Not that he wasn't happy that the older dwarf was now able to speak unhindered by Saruman's curse, but he just wished it was as easy for them as it was for him.
Gandalf had shrugged and said it was the nature of the spells. "It's the difference between adding a spell to make the first more effective and removing the first spell altogether," he had explained. "Bifur could always understand languages, they just got mixed up when he tried to speak them. I simply gave him a filter to keep things separate."
On the upside, Bifur's newfound ability to speak made the journey out of the wood more enjoyable, even with the windy and confusing forest path they now had to follow instead of the Great East Road. Why the elves had to force them to Thranduil's stronghold so far north of the road was beyond him. It simply added unnecessary time to their journey.
Now that Bifur could articulate words, though, Bofur was currently in the process of teaching his older cousin every single song he knew, which were mostly very bawdy drinking songs. Bifur was a quick study, and with Nori and Dwalin more than willing to pitch in for harmony, they made quite an entertaining troupe. Kili had to admit it was also endlessly entertaining to see Dori's face become more and more scandalized with each verse as he attempted to distract Ori from the lyrics.
Gandalf seemed equally amused at the dwarrows, but sobered after they crossed the stone bridge over the forest river and cautioned them to keep their voices down.
"Thranduil's forces keep most of the northern Greenwood safe, but orcs have built a strong base in the south of the wood at Amon Lanc," he informed them. "Small groups of them often infest the Dark Mountains and scout out the elves' movements. We do not want to attract their attention if we can avoid it. They will already be drawn to us by the magic certain members of our company carry."
Kili had to resist rolling his eyes as Fili stepped closer to him as if to protect him from unseen enemies. "Orcs can sense magic?" he asked Gandalf instead.
"Orcs are descended from elves tortured and twisted by the Melkor before the First Age, so they share some of the same abilities as the Eldar, including the ability to sense magic."
"But they can't tell what the magic is, right?" Fili asked urgently, shooting a worried look at Kili. This time, Kili couldn't fault him for the concern. He didn't like the thought of being controlled by a bunch of orcs.
"Very few could identify the type of magic on you, Prince Kili," the wizard assured. "Just like very few elves could identify it. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Besides, it is very unlikely that we will encounter any orcs. The wood-elves keep them mostly at bay."
#
Kili would lack on those words of the wizard as a jinx much later, once they were clear of the Greenwood and journeying south along the Anduin. To be fair, though, they had managed to journey for nearly two weeks along the Great River before running into trouble. Kili wasn't particularly in the mood to be fair, though, when roused in the middle of the night by Dori's cry of alarm.
Kili quickly untangled himself from Fili before jumping up and readying his bow. Fili unsheathed his twin swords at his side.
"Can you shoot them?" the golden prince whispered.
He shook his head. "They're not in range yet."
Which was a good thing, he knew. Dori had been able to raise the alarm fast enough to give them time to plan a course of action. It helped that the land between the river and the edge of the Greenwood was flat and relatively empty. Dori had spotted the orcs as soon as they crept out of the trees.
"There are too many of them to fight off," Gandalf said. "We are nearly at the bridge that will lead us into the realm of Lothlorien. The orcs will not follow us."
"Are you sure?" Bofur asked nervously, holding his mattock nervously as he eyed the orcs drawing ever closely.
From what Kili knew of orcs, he knew that they were lucky that these weren't riding Wargs. They were moving so fast, though, that this fact wasn't as comforting as it could have been.
"Yes, now run!" Gandalf ordered.
For once, Kili barely registered the curse forcing him to obey. He kept his bow out as he turned and ran, grateful for the bright moonlight that kept them from tripping in the darkness.
The bridge was in sight when he heard a grunt of pain at his side. He turned his head and stopped in horror as Fili stumbled into his arms, arrow protruding from his right calf. Trying very hard not to think about the poison likely on the arrow, Kili looped his arm around the prince's waist and helped him limp on with Fili's arm across his shoulders, cursing their slow pace as more arrows came perilously close to them.
"They're going to kill us both at this pace!" Fili hissed, trying and failing to put weight on his injured leg.
"I'm not leaving you behind," Kili insisted.
Fortunately, their predicament had been noticed by their companions, and suddenly, Dwalin was there, throwing Fili's other arm over his shoulders. Between the two of them, they were able to support Fili between them and go faster.
It was a relief to finally make it to the bridge. Kili cursed the sure-footed elves for their careless architecture as he realized that the bridge was too narrow to accommodate three dwarves walking abreast.
"I've got him, lad!" Dwalin told him. "You go first!"
Kili gritted his teeth as the order forced him to leave Fili's side but he didn't argue, not wanting to waste time. He made it across the bridge quickly and waited anxiously as Dwalin all but carried his prince across. He took his place at Fili's side as soon as they were off the bridge, hearing the frustrated cries of the orcs in the distant.
In relief, he helped Dwalin carry Fili as they plunged into the golden woods of Lorien.
Tbc…